


You Forgot About Me

by SburbanMom



Category: Homestuck
Genre: aranea is rly emotional, tw blood, written after 12-12 upd8
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-13
Updated: 2014-12-13
Packaged: 2018-03-01 05:51:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,318
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2762018
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SburbanMom/pseuds/SburbanMom
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Aranea is back in the dreambubbles. Unfortunately, there is no Plan B.</p>
            </blockquote>





	You Forgot About Me

**Author's Note:**

> had a bad day and i read the upd8 and my Meenah/Aranea feels flared up. shrug. enjoy this while i cram for finals.

There were so many timelines where a hand on the shoulder saved Aranea Serket.

The fight was brutal. No, not brutal, it was devastating in a way that nothing ever had been. The fingers that clamped around her throat were merciless and angry and no amount of fact-based debacle would turn her luck. No, Aranea Serket was a dead troll.   
Awakening in the dreambubbles sickened her to the core. It wasn’t without spilling her guts a few times did she manage to climb to her shaky legs and wipe the cerulean bile from her lips. She hated it here. She hated this wretched horrible excuse for a death, and wanted nothing more than to live again. Just to live.  
It would seem that her honor tarnished, the blueblood would sink back into quiet, complacent half-life, wandering through dreams and waiting for oblivion. But no, Aranea Serket had fire pulsing through her veins. Her hands were still stained with blood, well-earned red and teal and she was going to keep them like that. As the floor of her hive blossomed around her, Aranea Serket got to work.

It wasn’t for a while that Aranea felt visitors in her bubble. Her skin bristled, her smile was devilish, her eyes vividly orange with how hard she focused on pretending to be alive. Pretending to have flowing blood and a beating heart and real limbs. Pretending that she could fight.   
She didn’t dare greet her visitors. No, she waited, scribbled and hung and waited because she suspected that they would greet her instead.  
This is where the universes diverged. In some universes, the visitor listened. The visitor forgave, and was forgiven. But the universe that was real had other plans.  
Aranea stood with her hands behind her back, eyes darting side to side frenetically as she shifted and twitched. Every muscle felt strained. Every muscle felt aflame. The door creaked open and voices trickled through.  
“Eh, dunno who’s rememblubberin’ this ol’ place, god, what smeels?”  
“This is Aranea’s old place?”  
“Yeah, her, ‘ol-” Meenah’s face peered around the corner.  
There was a second of cool silence. A moment of recognition. Maybe apprehension. Regardless, the air was quiet and calm. It didn’t last long though.  
“Meenah!” Aranea nearly squealed. Her voice bristled with anger, with affection, with pain. “Meenah, oh. god, it’s been too long.”  
The seadweller was utterly silent. “Didn’t you go off the deep end? Pick up some funny jeweelry or somefin’? Water you doin’ here?”  
Aranea’s smile twitched dangerously as Vriska backed down the stairs slowly. “Meenah, I think we should…”  
“NO!” Aranea screamed. “No! Don’t you dare leave me. Don’t you dare leave me alone again.”  
Meenah furrowed her brows and stepped into the room. “Quit bein’ clamatic. You left on that ridiculous fishin and now you’re here for some reefson.” Meenah spun her trident around her wrist flippantly and Aranea stiffened.   
“Ridiculous? RIDICULOUS???” Aranea screeched. Vriska was slowly backing away, but Aranea clutched a hand to her own head so hard her hair began to rip. It didn’t take much for the less experienced blueblood to fall under Aranea’s control. Seething, Aranea took a step towards Meenah. “Oh, Aranea!” She mocked, eyes wild. “I’ve got a GRRRRRRREAT PLAN! Let’s mock Damara, let’s break her down and use her like a SLAVE!” Aranea pushed Vriska over. The controlled body didn’t make a sound, save a thud. “Let’s kill EVERYONE! Let’s just SEE WHAT HAPPENS! Oh, it’ll be GREAT fun.” Aranea unleashed a rough kick to the other Serket’s side with a screech. Meenah growled and lunged at Aranea. “You leave her the shell alone! What’d she eva do to you?”  
“REPLACED me!” Aranea shouted. Another blow to Vriska’s side. “You were the only one who listened, Meenah!” Another blow. Meenah moved to stop her, but the blueblood lifted her into the air. “Don’t you try and stop me.”  
“Aranea, you’re not thinkin’ strait!”  
“LET ME FINISH!” She shouted. “You didn’t care! You never cared! What am I doing, trying to save the universe? Trying to scrape my way back to relevance by fixing the world? Even when I was still around, even when I wasn’t working so hard! You’d rather spend your time with this Serket! Because she’s just like you, isn’t she? Well isn’t that just… nautical!” She dealt another hard blow to Vriska’s side, and the younger Serket gave a labored cough. Blood dripped onto the floor and Aranea cackled.  
Meenah growled. “You’re fuckin’ crazy! You’re abshellutely fuckin’ insane! I can’t believe I ever called ya my frond!”  
Aranea’s face fell in slow motion. First it was the mouth. The grin fell. The muscles relaxed. Then the eyes. Long navy eyelashes fluttered shut, like a squint. “Yeah. Fronds. Yeah, I remember that. Do you? Remember how we used to talk? How it used to be? Yeah, that was nice.”  
Meenah was silent, face hard. Aranea walked towards her shakily, her hands quivering as she clutched them together. “Remember how it used to be? How you’d come to my little stand and ask me about everyone, ask me and I’d tell you about their lives and you’d listen and it was so peaceful?”   
Aranea came face to face with the paralyzed Meenah. She dragged her finger over the exposed tip of the trident, drawing blood. She laughed. “Look at that. Look how sharp that is. How easy would it be? Y’know, you sure did love forking things when you were alive. How’d you like to fork me?”  
Meenah bared her teeth and Aranea gently lowered her down. “So? Do it! Do it, I dare you!” She giggled in a way that made Meenah’s back bristle. She threw her head back and laughed, a loud, wailing laugh that echoed through the cavernous hive.   
Meenah charged, feet pounding against the wooden floor as rage pounded through her veins. But as Aranea lowered her head, there was a flicker of recognition. A realization of that face staring back at her from behind those too-big glasses that slid down her nose. The choppy black hair that was now long and stringy and sweat-damp. Her feet skidded and she pulled her trident back. She couldn’t. She couldn’t do it.  
Aranea began to shake. She began to scream, a piercing, ghoulish scream that seemed to permeate all of paradox space. And she grabbed the handle of the trident closest to her.  
“Serk, don’t fuckin’ do it!”  
“Will it kill me? Will I finally be dead? Will I finally get to stop living like this?” She mumbled. She stared at the point of the trident and finally pulled it towards herself. It made a hideous noise, the sound of breaking flesh and cracking bone. She coughed once, twice. The opposite end of the trident fell to the floor and she laughed, blood spurting from her throat. She dug it in harder, deeper, twisting it and cackling, crying, screaming. Vriska rose from her place on the floor with a cough, link broken, walking to stand beside Meenah.  
“Meenah, I…”  
“Put her outta her misereef.”  
“What?”  
“I dunno. Control her or somefin. Just. Stop makin’ her whale like that.”  
Meenah was staring at Aranea as she sunk to the floor, blood pouring from her mouth.  
“Alright.” Vriska mumbled. She approached Aranea cautiously and pressed a hand to her head, focusing, concentrating. Her eyes screwed shut and Aranea quieted, hand dropping from the handle of the trident. Tears smeared her face as she keeled over, curled into a pitiful ball.  
“She’s good and dead alright.” Vriska sighed. “C’mon, let’s get going.”  
Meenah just kept staring. Not a single word escaped her lips.  
“She’s not coming back this time.”  
“Yeah.”  
“So quit staring at her. Let’s just go find something cool to do.”  
Meenah turned and nodded. “Yeah. Of course. Good idea.”  
The two left the room in silence, their voices starting back up once they’d made it outside.


End file.
